Who's the authoritarian?

 “America's now divided based on what news you consume. People I love and respect who are well educated who watch, I'm just going to say it. . . who read the New York Times and watch CNN and MSNBC are being lied to every single day about every aspect of this pandemic and these vaccines and the policies around them. . . ."

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“I confess that I believed the Russian hoax story too until it was conclusively debunked, not very long ago. I believed things that friends of mine of the Right think I’m crazy for having believed. If you watch CNN and read the New York Times, you’re getting a worldview—I don’t know how to say this, we’ve entered this time and the Smith-Mundt Act is part of this—where it is now legal to propagandize Americans”.

Naomi Wolf, former liberal writer

I know just how she feels. People who I know who watch or listen to CNN, The Times or MSNBC simply have no idea what has been going on and even doubt things that have absolutely happened. They think it is just conspiracy theories or fake news. It is nigh impossible to persuade anyone of anything when they are primed in the other direction and they are lied to every day from sources they believe.

But, still, I will try. We have to keep trying, even if we just tell our spouses and children.

Last month in my post I mentioned a young English professional traveler I listened to on a podcast, who was in Russia at the beginning of the war with Ukraine. He was able to travel for a while, occasionally pulled over on his bicycle a few time by the police and fined (after the cops took selfies with him), and finally arrested and held for three months before his release. Apparently, he is not so good a catch as Griner. In any event, I mention him again because he said that the saddest part of his trip before he was arrested was learning that the people, even non-Russians who he thought would be more cynical, believed all the propaganda coming out of their government.

And all I could think was, well, that sounds familiar.

I know lots of people who agree with me, but it seems to me that the majority of people in America have been swayed or completely convinced by the onslaught of anti-Trump rhetoric by the mainstream or legacy media and big tech’s censorship, that somehow - even if Biden is an idiot, or cognitively deficient or just grossly incompetent, he’s better than that “authoritarian” Trump. Or put another way, that Donald Trump is an authoritarian and, equally amazing to me, that Biden is not. And the Ds are doing everything they can to play this up. Biden made a speech on November 4^th where he almost entirely focused on the threat of “MAGA.” Apparently, he doesn’t think this raises the threat of violence, although this has been happening since before Trump was elected. This is part of mainstream Democrat rhetoric now and there is no push back from their party. Pam Keith, a D running for congress, in 2020 openly called for “open season” on Trump and his administration. Was she arrested? No. Even investigated? I don’t know, but I do not believe so from what I can see. In North Dakota, Calyer Ellingson, only 18, was run down and killed by Shannon Brandt, age 41, because Ellingson was a conservative. Perhaps Brandt is crazy – but remember the national outcry and attack on Trump when it happened in Charlottesville. Then, even idiot Rs jumped on the bandwagon of saying it can only be the fault of the right. We all know Nancy Pelosi’s husband was just attacked. I wrote about this a few weeks ago – and it looks also like a crazy person who believed conspiracy theories on both sides – not that you will read or hear that in the mainstream media.  Read the Naomi Wolf quote again. Until you open yourself up to that, you will not believe what I am about to tell you.

I have my two routines when a friend tells me that Trump is authoritarian or the like, which I usually cut short these days, but they make the point which I have little hope will make a small impact on the listener - such is the power of partisanship it can only be small. One is going through what Trump accomplished and asking them as to each one, if that’s what they didn’t like.  You know, “Is it that you don’t like the peace treaties he brokered between Israel and neighbors?” (which used to be good for a Nobel until Trump’s name was submitted)? Is it taking the handcuffs off our military so they could destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria as he said he would do that bothers you? Was it low unemployment for minorities, promoting decriminalizing homosexuality throughout the world, and so on. They, of course, answer no, no, no to all of them. It’s just, you know, he’s an authoritarian.

The second routine is asking them to tell me what he did that they did not like or thought was authoritarian without using adjectives (egotistic, arrogant, lying and my favorite, authoritarian – because they aren’t facts). Other than one woman who became incensed, and stormed away, most people I talk to about it can come up with nothing. In fact, they almost immediately resort to more adjectives – sometimes the same adjectives. Another, one of the smartest fellows I know said he was “allowed” to just have adjectives and he didn’t need to have facts to back it up, which was contrary to him previously saying to me that he liked data. When they say “authoritarian” or “power-hungry” and I ask them for examples, excluding 1/6 (because they thought he was authoritarian since even before he was in office and Jan. 6 was days before he was out of office, they literally can’t). None. Not one of them can and I guess I’ve asked perhaps a dozen people.

So, at risk of offending those who can’t bear to hear anything positive about Trump (“I don’t want to talk about it” after they’ve excoriated him) and negative about Biden, let’s review the evidence on whether Trump is authoritarian. I can’t prove to you a negative, that Trump was not authoritarian, because there are very few negatives you can prove, particularly if they end with an opinion. So, I’ll just ask you - what did he do that was authoritarian? Leave aside that you think he summoned a mob to take over the government (because, surely, a bunch of unarmed bikers would accomplish that) because you were always told and thought he was for four years and that happened with two weeks left to his term.  I will deal with 1/6 separately another day as it will make this post too long, but his role is ridiculously overstated. But I can tell you this before I show you how authoritarian Biden actually is: You tell me what part of this you factually disagree with:

Trump and his administration made no presidential decree or push for any law which favored some Americans over other because of superficial characteristics like race, religion, sex; didn’t try to force his particular cultural values on anyone; obeyed judicial decrees even when they were ridiculous; didn’t try to destroy any American industries; didn’t try to proselytize new cultural norms; didn’t try to divide the country (you cannot blame the “resistance” on him); didn’t nominate or hire based on superficial characteristics; he didn’t use violence to put down resistance (even in Portland, he sent federal troops to protect federal property and workers, but didn’t attack the rioters and in Seattle had troops only on standby); didn’t try to make non-law enforcement federal agencies, like the IRS, into gun-wielding enforcers; didn’t pretend PTA moms and dads were terrorists because they disagreed with him; didn’t try to stack the rules against male college students but made harassment charges fair for everyone; didn’t try to harm women competing in sports by forcing them to compete with men; didn’t try to stifle free speech or religion; didn’t try to force little girls to share bathrooms with boys; he didn’t try to pack the courts or otherwise turn us into a one-party country; didn’t set forth an anti-American or anti-white race agenda; didn’t free up vandals to destroy federal monuments; didn’t do what he could to allow for the dissolving of the border; didn’t harass journalists, and so on. And didn’t create federal mandates destroying people’s lives because they didn’t want to put a fairly untested “vaccine” into their arms. These are all things the left, and even Joe Biden’s administration did.

If you think any of the above isn’t true, please give me facts, not adjectives. The only aggressive thing he did, and it was clearly reluctantly, was direct GE, which can certainly fend for itself, to make ventilators, because at the time, that’s what the so-called science of the CDC and FDA told us was the answer to serious COVID cases (as so often – wrong again).

Now, let’s look at Biden. And if you don’t know any of the below or will not believe something is true, read the Naomi Wolf quote again).

Here we go. Biden and/or his administration have. . .

Oil and gas. Starting his second day in office Biden attempted to damage America’s oil and gas industry based on the supposed science of anthropogenic global warming (“AGW”), something of course no one can prove (I’m still agnostic about it) which the left nevertheless declares proven (just like the vaccine). Certainty, a non-starter in actual science, is also a left-wing specialty these days. Around 2018, during Trump’s term, we became energy independent, the first time in about 70 years, exporting more than we imported. Now, in the Biden era, we’ve quickly become energy dependent again. Let’s start with the Keystone Pipeline extension coming from Canada. Obama rejected it. Trump, fast-tracked it. Biden shut it down on his second day in office by presidential decree. Recently Biden said there would be no more drilling while he’s president. I’m going to assume that he either meant on federal land, which he has some say over, or just doesn’t understand.

During his campaign Biden repeatedly said he opposed fracking, then in a debate with Trump, claimed he never said it. It was just one more lie for Biden who has made a career out of them. With a fully obeisant left-wing media, which would not even report on Hunter’s infamous laptop, pretending it was Russian disinformation, few called him on it. In his first two weeks in office, he issued to orders pausing new gas and oil leases on federal lands, including, of course, fracking. Not congress and the president, just Biden. It was initially stayed by a district court judge, but unfortunately an appeals court reinstated the presidential order for the time being.

I say unfortunately, because you know the state we are in because of it - gas prices have sky-rocketed ahead of inflation and our emergency reserves depleted by our same hero. Even though we are in a proxy-war with Russia, we are beholden to buy its oil. We had to go begging to our enemy, Venezuela, to pump more. And Biden, who was heavy-handed with our difficult but usual ally, Saudi Arabia, and in begging mode with our enemy, Iran, had to go hat-in-hand to the Saudis to ask for more production, and now is threatening them because OPEC, for its own purposes, is cutting production. Please explain that to me, my left-wing or leaning friends, how this makes any sense? Let’s just say that anthropogenic global warming is real. Then why are we asking other countries to pump more when we can do it? Of course, none of it makes sense. It’s just Biden pushing the narrative, not by law, where congress legislates and the president passes them, but by using his presidential powers (and those at least are powers he has) to harm us to push the left-wing narrative. If you don’t believe it is harming us, go fill up your car.

And, unless you watch or read the legacy media you probably fear – you don’t even know that there is a great diesel oil shortage coming – that heats your home, runs trucks, machinery, etc. We should all be scared. What’s the White House plan? Nothing the WH spokesperson recently said.

Gender

"Those who deny the biological differences between a man and a woman are not only erasing women as a category of people, they’re denying the existence of objective reality, and the ‘truth’ becomes whatever those in power want it to be.”

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“There is no space for freedom of speech, there is no space for independent thought. It is conform or be canceled.”

Tulsi Gabbard, former Democrat

Biden’s and the left’s war on boys and girls is hard to believe. Most people, maybe everyone I know, has empathy for men or women who think they were born in the wrong body. What they do not have sympathy for is the assault on boys and girls, including erasing that term in many public schools, even teaching secondary and college kids that there are multiple genders, the nouveau craziness of having people say their preferred pronouns, the insistence that men can have babies and other inanities. But most of all, it’s allowing men in girls bathrooms because they say they are woman. Worse, of course, is the secretive “transforming,” drugging kids with puberty blockers or even performing surgery, without parental permission. I don’t even know how it can possibly be legal to do that to a child with a parent’s permission. For goodness sake, a women recently had her son removed from her home because she got him a tattoo at age 10. Sex change on children is Mengelian. There was a time when the thought of transforming a child into another sex would be a plot in a horror movie.

What has this to do with Biden? It should be nothing, but even far worse than Obama, he wants to use the presidency, like so many, he says he would be the president for everyone, to radicalize our country. His decree sets a policy that includes things that sound nice in the abstract, but are ominous, because we all know or should know – if we pay any attention and read media outside of those protecting the left and original documents, to the best they are available.

The policies which U.S. agencies have been ordered to enforce include: “Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports.  Adults should be able to earn a living and pursue a vocation knowing that they will not be fired, demoted, or mistreated because of whom they go home to or because how they dress does not conform to sex-based stereotypes.” And sure enough, as predicted by many, the USDA, a few months later declared it would enforce the decree. That means, of course, threatening school lunches, though they did not say it directly. And that’s exactly what happened – is still happening. After a lawsuit by religious schools, the USDA has only backed down against them, in August this year. But, all other schools are still targeted – meaning, they have to let boys and even men (who work in school) in girls’ bathrooms, make girls share locker rooms with boys. Any who do not comply are deemed to have harassed the transgender child (I recently in Vermont, an entire girls’ team has been thrown out of their own locker room and only the transgender child may use it (Girls Volleyball Team Banned From Their Own Locker Room Over Complaint About Transgender Student | The Daily Wire – hard if not impossible to find on liberal media).

Of course, as I have pointed out many times, despite the pretense, the left could care less about the plight of the poor – even minorities. Because who are they targeting with student lunches? The meals of rich or middle-class kids? No, poor kids who need the assistance are the one’s who get free lunches. You don’t think this will start happening again soon, now that some red-states have outlawed this monstrous behavior?  

Are you not shocked that the many red-state attorney generals have found it necessary to write Merritt Garland, probably the most leftist federal AG we’ve ever had to ask him not to act on the request of the American Medical Association and other groups to literally – not kidding, please look it up –investigate and prosecute those who question what they are doing to children in the name of “gender affirming care?” Why would they even think this necessary? What Attorney General in America – our America – would ever consider that as a possibility, given the first amendment. Why? Because they’ve already have seen it almost happen with parents of little girls forced to share bathrooms with boys and men, including one father whose daughter was raped who was dragged from a PTA meeting. Not that I’m John the Baptist, but I’ve been screaming into the wilderness here for years that fascism is already here. Merrick Garland is our Himmler. Take a look at the memo. 2021-11-16-JDJ-to-Garland-re-completeness-of-testimony.pdf (house.gov).

Abortion – In June this year, the Supreme Court, after almost 50 years, did what made sense, ended one of the worst decisions by the Court, Roe v. Wade, retuning the power to the states to make up their own laws about a domestic issue, the legality of abortion up to the states. Remember, even Ruth Ginsberg said it was badly decided. Personally, I think the Supreme Court could have said that fetuses (aka “unborn babies”) had a constitutional right to live, which they have just this week turned down from hearing in another case. But, they said nothing like that. Despite the lies of politicians about the decision, claiming it ended abortion – obviously, the Dobbs decision did not.

What was Biden’s initial go to when he was confronted with the Dobbs decision? He said he didn’t have a lot of legal authority to declare a public health emergency (ironically, whatever he did for the health emergency would result in many babies deaths) and then said he was considering it. If the Ds control both houses, it is a pretty sure thing they will try. They’ve already tried for legislation, that didn’t succeed initially, to make abortion legal everywhere. They will try again and again.

Debt

Biden has no right to simply declare which debt will be paid and which will not. There was an emergency rule under COVID to allow debt relief, but it is the height of hypocrisy for the government to declare his relief plan of up to $20,000 for some college debt is because of COVID. It was to garner votes. Fortunately, for the moment, a lower federal court judge has halted it. It is quite possible that a Supreme Court could overturn the stay (the Appeals Court has affirmed it). Of course, judges don’t usually say whether they think something is authoritarian – but, it sure doesn’t seem like the rule of law applied.

Local zoning laws

The left has long been desirous of ending state rights that keep the federal government out of our lives. Of course, state rights have been disintegrating for centuries and there is little left of it. But, zoning laws, things like how big your property can be and where you can do business, have always been left to the states. As far as I’m aware, there are no federal zoning laws.

But, Biden doesn’t want that. He, who lives in 6,850 sq. ft house on 4 lakefront acres in Delaware (he also has a beach house) wants to make a federal law, likely unconstitutional, which will limit you and your children to far less. A WH fact sheet advised that he wanted to do away with local zoning – yes, the federal government will take control, and things like minimum sized plots (in other words, good-bye to beautiful neighborhoods). How much do you want to bet their will be a cut-out for those in congress and other wealthy folk?

You don’t think ending state and local “exclusionary” zoning and making the feds in charge is authoritarian? This is exactly the kind of thing the constitution was created to prevent.

It has come to nothing, but the authoritarian has wanted to do it.

The Vaccine mandates

During the pandemic, we were subject to all kinds of Biden mandates. He made a national speech calling it a pandemic of the unvaccinated and told the country it was alright to be angry at the unvaccinated. Thankfully, the courts finally got rid of most of them (they continue to coerce the medical profession). Though there was some red state bullying too, particularly at the beginning, that’s at the state level, and it was the blue states where it was worst.

Again, why do I call these mandates authoritarian? Two reasons. First, there have never been federal vaccine requirements. Everyone made a big deal about a Massachusetts case from 1903 which upheld required vaccines. Arguably, at a local level, it is legal and reasonable, if the consequences are great enough. The authoritarian government orders people to inject themselves with foreign substances which have been barely tested and which more and more evidence is showing has more risks than health benefits. Some judges have ruled against them.  E.g., Judge tosses NYC vaccine mandate, orders workers' backpay (nypost.com). The only shame is that the Supreme Court, ending an aggressive Biden mandate on businesses, let it stand for physicians and other health care workers. Supreme Court blocks nationwide vaccine and testing mandate for large businesses | CNN Politics because of the precedent of letting Medicare regulating health care.

Pushing the woke agenda

After Trump learned of Obama era rules pushing critical race theory and other woke ideology on federal employees, including the military, he ended it. No surprise, Biden started it again. While China cleans our clock developing its military capabilities, we are teaching our soldiers a new religion (See, John McWhorter’s wonderful book, Woke Racism). Biden also reversed Trump's reversal of Obama's rules on judging harassment at schools, basically starving male students of due process rights. You can't expect anything else once you ignore the nonsense about Trump and realize that Biden is determined to take away basic rights.

Another example of this agenda was the attack on the federal officers defending our border, accusing them of whipping refugees on horseback, something that not only didn’t happen – the photographer who shot the picture said no one was whipped – but was well known to the Alejandro Mayorkas on the first day to be false. Didn't stop from pretending it was true, saying it was horrific and that our history had not yet turned that page. It ended only recently, only after a year just the way it started, with the acknowledgement that the photographer had said no one was whipped and he had never seen that.

The Big Lie

The Big Lie was not that Trump won the election, it is that it is the Rs who are a threat to democracy. If you don’t believe that, explain to me why the Ds are the party that wants to end the filibuster in the Senate (so that they can win every vote), end the electoral college (so they can win every presidential election based on California’s population), pack the Supreme Court with liberal judges so that they can win every case, do away completely with voter ID and have weeks long voting with unsecured write-in voting predominating. I don’t think you can convincingly. 

I recently wrote on all the lies, and there have been so many more since then. Just for example, we’ve learned that despite the suspension of the horse-back division of our Border Protection, they suspended and castigated those men for supposedly whipping refugees, they knew from day 1 it wasn’t so. Didn’t matter, the narrative was too good to pass up. We’ve had in the past, some in the last few weeks, Biden saying things like that his son, who died of cancer (not Hunter) died in Iraq in the armed services, that his wife escaped when their house burned down (it was a small kitchen fire – nothing burned down), that he desegrated churches and was raised in a black church, that the driver who killed his wife and children was drunk, that when he took over gas was $5 a gallon, that he boosted social security by a record amount. Even media onboard with the anti-Trump, progressive narrative like the NYTimes has called him out on some of these. They seem never ending. Keep telling yourself Trump lied. Sure he did. One, most politicians do. Two, Trumps couldn’t hold a candle to Biden, who never stops.

Intimidation tactics

Of course there are examples of right-wing violence, but it is eschewed by the mainstream right-wing. Democrats either back the violent left-wing extremists like antifa or they ignore them. It has been a left-wing staple for a long-time now, but increasingly, while right wing violence decreases. Just since Trump ran for president in 2016 we have seen assaults and attempts to shut down his rallies during his campaign, the harassment of and even attacks on Republican leaders in public, the murders of police officers, the legal assaults on officers doing their jobs, the leaking of the Dobbs draft opinion, the attempt to murder Justice Kavanaugh and planned murder of other conservative justices, the Biden administrations refusals to stop the harassment of the justices in their homes - even though it is a crime to do so. 

The FBI and DOJ

So sad what the FBI has become under Biden (and even before, in joining the resistance) that it will be a full post coming up. A police state is already here. I know, you haven’t heard about this, right. Sigh. But, it’s terrifying and you really should be scared.

Big show biz finish

I literally can’t keep up myself with this administration’s lies and malfeasance. But, I can’t go on forever here (please don't say - it already has), with thanks to anyone who has even gotten this far. It’s hard to read this stuff without wanting to believe otherwise, and that’s without going over the strong-arm tactics of the so-called Department of Justice, the January 6th murder of Ashlee Babbitt and the kangaroo court known as the January 6th committee, that wouldn't even let Republicans put their chosen members on it - unheard of in congress.

Let me finish then with a few more words from Tulsi Gabbard. I’m actually haven’t been a big Gabbard supporter. Although there have been things I’ve admired about her, I have always been a hawk, believing we need the biggest most powerful military in the world by far and to support countries like Ukraine, and she is almost the opposite. That’s important to me too. But otherwise, Gabbard was shunned by the left and has finally left the Democrat Party because of what they have become, not unlike James Webb before her, after he was so severely criticized because he had the temerity to say All Lives Matter during a presidential primary debate. Unlike, me, Gabbard doesn't use the word fascist. At least not yet. That’s fine. But she understands the leaders in that party are anti-freedom, what I would call fascist. She recently said:

“And because they don't believe in freedom, and because they are, you know, the party is led by fanatical ideologues, they are actively trying to undermine those God-given rights that are enshrined in our Constitution. They're actively seeking to undermine our freedom of speech. They want to control what we say and what we think. They are attacking our religious liberty. They cannot handle it, when people dare to speak out. Or even question, question the things they're trying to employees on us as a society, and the way they foment fear. You see this cancel woke culture. They try to silence anyone who dares to disagree, or anyone who dares to expose the insecurity -- their insecurity, and the weakness in their arguments and narratives. And for a whole host of reasons, and you can go and read my statement on Substack, or listen to -- you know, I spoke about this in detail. On the Tulsi Gabbard Show. But it really all comes down to freedom. And I can no longer be associated with today's Democratic Party, that is so actively anti-freedom.”

Biden said he was here to “restore the soul of the nation.” Instead he is a fraud, leading an authoritarian party.